The White House believes it can use Andrew McCabe's tell-all book to Trump's advantage
One might expect some of the recent revelations from former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's new tell-all book to send the White House into turmoil. Not so.
Axios reports White House officials see McCabe's new book — The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump — as an "opportunity." McCabe has in recent television interviews made a number of jaw-dropping statements, including confirming that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed whether Cabinet officials might come together to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. McCabe also said he opened an investigation into Trump and that he thought it was possible the president was working for Russia.
That's all pretty damaging, but according to Axios, White House officials and those close to Trump "plan to keep promoting" stories like these because "Trump and his allies view this as vindicating his narrative that there's a Deep State 'coup' afoot." This explains, Axios writes, why Trump allies and even the president himself have been putting some of McCabe's anecdotes out there rather than trying to suppress them or claim fake news.
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Trump, after all, has been tweeting up a storm about McCabe in recent days, on Monday tweeting a quote from Sean Hannity claiming that McCabe "admitted to plotting a coup (government overthrow) when he was serving in the FBI." Trump added, "Treason!"
According to Axios, the White House's plan is to argue that stories like these from McCabe are true while at the same time everything else he says is "a pack of lies."
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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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